[BBC List] Beth Less

Thu Jun 1 10:08:18 EAST 2006

Whie Beth Moore certainly says many true things, I don’t recommend her over
all.  Some of the reasons are below.

Mike

Contact me if you are interested in Israel 2007!

Beth Moore's Believing God 

Reviewed by Susan Disston 

Believing God    
by Beth Moore
Broadman & Holman, 2004
260 pages (hardback), $22.99

In Believing God, popular Bible teacher and author Beth Moore explains her
personal journey toward obedience in the area of faith. Not content with the
unbelief and defeatism of Christians around her, she decides to buck the
trend and find a Christianity that works. Her premise in the book is that
the “primary reason God left us on earth after our salvation was for our
Christianity to ‘succeed’ right here on this turf.” The turf she’s referring
to is an earthly Promised Land where God’s “personalized promises over your
life become a living reality rather than a theological theory.” The ticket
to the Promised Land is pleasing God by exercising faith and having faith
credited to you as righteousness. According to Moore, all Christians could
experience their own Promised Land during their lifetime if only they would
make faith an “action verb” and kick it up a notch. With Christianity like
that, no one can say that it doesn’t work.

Moore offers her readers the ticket to the Promised Land that will turn
passive faith into “action verb” faith. It is five-point pledge of faith
that is memorized and spoken out loud daily: God is who he says he is; God
can do what he says he can do; I am who God says I am; I can do all things
through Christ; God’s Word is alive and active in me. The pledge is designed
to overcome doubts about God’s power and goodness, to bolster faith in
miracles, to claim one’s adoption into God’s family through Christ, and to
open the Christian to receiving personalized messages from God both through
the Bible and through daily interventions.
In the ensuing chapters, she discusses the five points, drawing out a few
strands of theological truth in relationship to each one. In addition, she
takes on topics such as emotional wounds, satanic strongholds, psychological
problems, feelings of failure, and generational sin to show how the
five-point pledge of faith can tackle each one. Her personal stories are in
every chapter, demonstrating her determination and efforts to combat the
spiritual malaise that she says characterizes the church. She energetically
admonishes defeated Christians to lay claim to faith like Joshua’s and prove
for themselves that God is who he says he is (and the other four points of
her system). In fact, Moore’s teaching ministry is called “Living Proof
Ministries.” She holds herself out as a woman who was once beset by failure
and who is now living proof that “action-verb” faith brings victory and
success to the Christian’s life.

Moore has written other books, including character study books on Jesus,
King David, and the disciple John. Her Bible study book, Breaking Free:
Making Liberty in Christ a Reality in Life, continues to be a best seller.
The fill-in-the-blank format allows readers to examine the ways they are
captive to sin and the enemy’s lies. Then Moore takes them through a study
of Bible verses and passages where she explains how Christ can set them
free. She teaches that Christians can be burdened again by a yoke of slavery
(Gal. 5:1). The way out of slavery is for Christians to grasp their
God-given purpose, which is expressed in another five points: to know and
believe God, to glorify him, to find satisfaction in him, to experience his
peace, and to enjoy his presence.

Moore is a pragmatist. When she reads the Bible she expects it to speak to
her about her life in practical ways. She uses the people and stories in the
Bible as allegories of the Christian life to explain how Christians can be
defeated or victorious. Their destiny depends on how they respond to God.
The equation is simple, according to Moore; the more faith they exercise,
the better their reward in this life. Her books, Bible studies, videos, and
speaking ministry follow a similar pattern of self-disclosure, plucky faith
that is determined to overcome, and confirmation from the Bible that
Christians can and do experience victory over sin, deliverance from bondage,
and successful Christianity. 

In addition to Bible study, she encourages readers to join her in recording
what she calls God’s daily interventions. In Believing God they are given a
name: “Godstops,” an acronym for “Savoring the Observable Presence.” She
teaches that God reveals himself and his purposes in many ways, including
signs, miracles, emotions, and mystical experiences. According to Moore,
Christians who aren’t attuned to this exhilarating experience of God are
missing a normal and powerful way that God relates to his people and blesses
them with his presence. 
Although she wants to be theological and Christ-centered, too much of
Moore’s material is about her take on her experience with God. Her writing
tends to be undisciplined and shallow. She is far too willing to gloss over
uncomfortable theological implications in favor of feel-good stories and
quick explanations. Knowing God comes through experience; most sin is the
result of failing to believe and be delivered; repentance is rarely
mentioned. Her bent toward mysticism permits her to circumvent traditional
theological interpretations and indulge in explanations of her own design
that are more reasonable and satisfying to her sensibilities. 

Basically she says, don’t let theology and doctrine confuse you when you can
figure it out with God for yourself in a way that works for you.
Unfortunately, people who use her materials can’t help but absorb some of
that reasoning. Even more troubling is that they think they’re doing Bible
study when they are really getting a heavy dose of mysticism, storytelling,
psychology, and prosperity gospel. In the introduction to Believing God,
Moore shows her true, but mistaken, agenda when she says, “I know I’m going
to make it to heaven because I’ve trusted Christ as my Savior, but I want to
make it to my Canaan on the way. I want to finish my race in the Promised
Land, not in the wilderness. You too? Then we have to cash in our fear and
complacency and spend all we have on the only ticket out: BELIEF.” 

There are many worthy goals of Bible study, but securing heaven on earth is
not one of them, at least for Reformed Christians. And the surest way to get
off track is to add human effort to what God has already done in the cross
of Christ, even when it’s called believing God or faith. Faith in Jesus
Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for
salvation. Everything else is of grace in the Christian experience, too,
thanks be to God.

Susan Disston
Christian Education Consultant,
Presbyterian Church in America

Charis, 

Mike Abendroth 

"Make us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to
be contented with half truth when whole truth can be won.  Endow us with
courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns
to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when right and truth
are in jeopardy."

 - West Point Military Academy Cadet Prayer 

HYPERLINK "http://www.bbcchurch.org"www.bbcchurch.org 

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